3 Simple Tips for Writing Better Web Pages

Think about how you read web pages. You’re usually looking for information, right?

Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.

Take this page, for instance. You’ve been promised three tips. Right about now, you’re scrolling down to skim for those three points. If they intrigue you, you’ll read more. 

A good web writer considers how to help her reader get what she came for when she comes to a website.

Tip #1: Place Important Information First

If you get nothing else from this page, understand this about website content writing: place your key ideas near the beginning of the page.

Also known as inverted pyramid writing, this approach is used by writers and journalists in traditional media. Essential details are presented first, often as a summary, allowing readers to find out the basics from the opening few paragraphs. The rest of the article gives in-depth information and additional details.

Translation to writing web pages: summarize your page’s content somewhere in the first 100 words – preferably in the first 50 words. 

Do this by using keywords. Know what keywords (or key phrases) you want to communicate on that particular page and then strategically place those keywords at the top and in subsequent subheads.

Which leads to the next of these 3 simple tips for writing pages for the web …

Tip #2: Use White Space

Web readers skim. They don’t read word for word. Forget what you learned in English class about presenting ideas in 3-sentence paragraphs. 

As you write content for your web page, know that less is more. One sentence equals a paragraph.

You can work in more white space onto your web content when you …

• Eliminate extra words. Write in a clear, concise style. Use only as much information as needed to communicate the point of the page. If your reader needs more information to understand a concept, link him to another page (See Tip #3, below).
• Eliminate jargon. Forget insider lingo and fancy language that you think makes you sound smart. Readers respect you more when you write in plain English. Remember, they’re on your website to get information … not to be intimidated.
• Write short sentences and paragraphs. One- or two-sentence paragraphs work best on the web.
• Use bullet points and subheads. These visual reminders give the reader the “high points” and guide him through your piece to give him the gist of what you’re saying. (Here are some tips for writing better bullet points)

Tip #3: Include Internal Links

Internal links (that is, links to other pages on your website) allow your reader to find related content on your site. Links also help search engines to crawl your site – a good thing to gain you more traffic. (Links to other sites will take readers away from your page. Some outbound links are good to provide helpful information, but in most cases you want reader to stay on your site as long as possible.)

Without internal links, each page of your website is isolated. Your readers won’t know about all the other useful content you’ve got available to them.

Internal links also allow you to write tight (see Tip #2). Rather than explain a point in detail and get off topic, you can create a contextual link to another page on your site that addresses the issue. Your page content will stay on point.

Which in this case, was to give you 3 simple tips for writing better web pages.

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